1 yr. ago • 100%

is a separate firewall required or does openwrt include that?

For a while I have been planning to switch from an all-in-one wifi router to having separate devices because that way they can be upgraded piece by piece instead of having to replace the whole thing.

I am confused about the role of the firewall.

If I have a router running OpenWRT, does it have a firewall included? Either by default or by installing certain packages?

Or is it required to have a separate firewall running opnsense/pfsense?

If not required, what would be the benefits that would lean in favour of separate firewall?

use case: small home network 2-3 users. some internal self hosting and maybe one day external self hosting.

ETA: The best internet I could subscribe to where I’m at is 1024 Mbps down, 50 Mbps up. So don’t worry about wasting fibre speeds. :(

My assembled components so far are: router, WAPs, switches, ethernet cable and cable modem.

Thanks for any advice.

20 comments

Openwrt includes a firewall, but most wifi routers aren't fast enough to run complicated firewall rules, VPNs, etc. at full speed. If you want to set up complicated firewall rules or run a VPN server on the same machine as your firewall (you can always use a different server), AND you have a fast internet connection (like 1gbps) and want full speed then it's a good idea to use a faster x86 machine for the firewall. Lots of people just use openwrt and live with the performance penalty, though.

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- Openwrt includes a firewall, but most wifi routers aren’t fast enough to run complicated firewall rules, VPNs, etc. at full speed.
  
  Not my experience. Right now I'm running 2 Wireguard VPNs and a moderately complex firewall on a single core 775Mhz Atheros TP-Link router and it's not even breaking a sweat. More than 60% of memory is available, and even when transferring a huge file the utilization doesn't exceed 50%.
  
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  Memory normally isn't the bottleneck. When you say "moderately complex firewall" does that include policy-based routing? What speeds do you get between a wireguard client and a wireless client?
  
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- The best internet I could subscribe to where I’m at is 1024 Mbps down, 50 Mbps up. :(
  
  Sounds like I can just use the router then.
  
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  1024Mbps = 1gbps
  
  That's fast enough to hit the limit of most hardware people put openwrt on, but if you stick with standard firewall rules and don't install anything else on the router you should be ok. The router might limit your download speed slightly, but you should still easily get 800+ mbps.
  
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  Isn’t 1024 Mbps the same as 1 Gbps?
  
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The firewall is the gatekeeper that typically controls the traffic between the WAN and LAN. Most routers have at least a basic firewall built in. Whether you should have a separate router and firewall depends on a few things.

A common scenario is if you're routing a whole bunch of different subnets internally. This is often the case in an enterprise environment where thousands of devices are connected to the network. Routing can eat up a lot of horsepower and you don't want spikes in WAN traffic slowing down your internal routing. In that situation it makes sense to have separate firewall and router appliances.

If you're running you're entire LAN on one subnet, you're not typically going to have any internal issues with routing related to WAN traffic. It's also easier to troubleshoot one network appliance than multiple. I run a single Mikrotik as my main router and firewall. Don't make it any more complex than you need to unless you just want to see if you can.

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- I run a single Mikrotik as my main router and firewall.
  
  Cool! I also have a mikrotik. I flashed over the stock firmware in favour of openwrt which I have some experience with. And is free software.
  
  Don’t make it any more complex than you need to unless you just want to see if you can.
  
  I do not. I don't really enjoy networking stuff tbh. I am willing to do it because I think in the end I will be happier with the result. It's like going to the gym though.
  
  A lot of forum posts are from people who are motivated by the learning value or by making small optimizations. I just want "good enough".
  
  Is there any specific information about setting up the openwrt firewall that you'd recommend? Or is it literally included in the default install?
  
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When I set up OpenWRT it had a firewall installed by default. I assume this is standard for all devices it can be installed on.

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Check the firewall tap on openwrt. It should be set to sain defaults

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